What Helmet was graham (rayne) wearing at maryhill 08?
i know graham from rayne had like an aero fearing on the back. but what was the helmet inside? or what was the helmet infront? thanx ill get a pic of him in it up in a little bit but if you were there you know what it looked like?
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Re: What Helmet was graham (rayne) wearing at maryhill 08?
It was, as I recall, a Bell Drop. I'll be grabbing one of them sooner than later... They fit a Charly visor super well and are safe. They have roughly the same shape as a Charly, though in a slightly beefier package and also are accompanied by a replacement plan that, if one is compromised, the second is sold at a discounted price. Finally, a safe helmet.
Re: What Helmet was graham (rayne) wearing at maryhill 08?
the charly visor fits pretty good, but needs some tape. You definitely loose some useability since you can't flip your visor up, but if you can forego looking ultra-sleek then this is the helmet.
Once you take off the visor of the stock helmet, the form factor for the bell drop is like inflating the surface area of a charly by .5" to 1" all around. It IS bigger, but it is also much, much safer. The helmet was made specifically for downhill mountain bike racing and spoke volumes to me.
When Justin Metcalf was injured, the road wasn't what did the damage, it was the trees and rocks off the side of the road. While Charly's are a great shell, and in most racing situations I believe they are safe for road impacts. It is the non-road impacts I worry about and was confronted with after Justin's accident.
So, the shopping began and the Bell Drop was what I found to be best.
To outfit it for longboarding was easy. A charly visor fits with electrical tape and the aero fairing is dead simple, but takes some revision to make it fit just right. The important thing to mention here is that the emphasis of building this helmet was to make something FAST, but very safe. The Bell drop was a starting point. Adding a visor and sealing up vents with electrical tape was step #2. The final step was really to point our that aerodynamics do not have to come at the expense of safety.
The aero helmets on the market right now have some fatal flaws that we should all be aware of:
-Paragliding helmets are made for light impacts. This is ok for road impacts, but trees - bad news.
-RISCH and LID TECHNOLOGIES: This is a topic I haven't breached because it is opinion, but it should be voiced. DON'T TRUST HELMETS MADE BY SKATEBOARDERS! they may look good, but they have not been tested. The guys behind these helmets NEED to invest in proper testing before exposing themselves to liability, and to ensure that their trusting audience isn't going to break their neck. This is a SERIOUS warning. DO NOT BUY THESE HELMETS. Pressure the manufacturers into extensive testing.
Also, I have concern for Concrete Wave for publishing ads that advocate helmet use, yet also publish articles about untested and potentially unsafe helmets (RISCH).
My primary concern about these helmets is the testing - it hasn't been done, or if it has there is no rating. The second concern is their usability. Before embarking on making my helmet fairing I read a few books on aerodynamics and my conclusion is that shoulder fairings are completely useless. Shoulders are aerodynamic on their own. In the dynamic nature of a downhill skateboarder the rider changes stances and in many situations shoulder fairings add additional surface area (increased drag if you are not in a tuck). Complicating matters is of course the fact that there are shoulder fairings. They get in the way and in the case of a crash, my prediction is that before long we will see broken collarbones as a result of these shoulder fairings.
What I did glean from my aerodynamic studies is that on Aero Helmets the tail fin is adding a significant amount of benefit. In the case of aero helmets this is a fixed composite construction. This concerns me. In event of a crash we do not know what outcome this will have on the rider. The fact that most helmets on the market for virtually EVERY sport allow the neck to move in the event of a crash is testimony that fixed tails are a bad idea.
My SOLUTION: For the fairing I used a piece of snowboard P-Tex because we have a lot at the shop and it fit my safety requirements. This was used because if taped on it will crush in the event of a crash, leaving the helmet to take any impact. I made 3 revisions to the fairing before it worked really well for me and as a comparison test I have ridden a LID helmet and had similar benefits speed-wise in comparision with a charly, or a Bell Drop sans fairing.
What Helmet was graham (rayne) wearing at maryhill 08?
